Rules: AWI

Bob Bergman has written “One If By Land”, a set of free wargames rules for the American War of Independence on a 1:10 scale. The rules use a card activation system, movement is randomized with a die to reflect the uneven nature of terrain, and fire and melee combat are resolved by rolling a d10 and consulting a table. A nice touch is that the figures are based according to the popular “Age of Reason” rules set. I have a large collection of 15mm American Revolution figures and I’m going to give these a try.

King George Commands and We Obey is a set of free wargames rules for American War of Independence, Napoleonic Peninsular and the American War of 1812. The author writes:

My key requirements are:

I spend a large amount of time and money collecting units. I decided I wanted them to stay on the table long enough for people to see, therefore no casualty removal.

I hate the “my turn/your turn” approach. With that in mind I use a card based turn system. I first used this in my Dad’s army game. Depending upon the level of game you are playing, a playing card is allocated to each unit or in larger games brigade commanders and above. This also means turns are not all the same as an end of turn card can come up at any time.

They have to be easy to learn. The common approach should assist with this and it is then just about the era specifics.

As little paperwork as possible. Most units have a small tab on a base. This contains all the information you need so no other paperwork, in most cases. This could of course be kept separately rather than attached but I think in a demo game it also allows visitors to see which units are representing which.

Enjoyable. I am not too serious and enjoy a light hearted approach at times to rules. Have a look at my rocket rules. While they may be a little slow to enact, imagine the gasps as rockets snake across the field. You never really know where they will end up!

Bravado is a set of free wargames rules for the horse and musket period. There are guidelines for both the American War of Independence and Napoleonic Wars for play. The rules employ an interesting mechanism where the players compete for initiative, deciding how much they will risk disaster in order to have another phase of movement or attack or time to reform their regiments.

Loose Files and American Scramble by Andy Callan was one of the first American Revolution games that I played. Originally published in Wargames Illustrated in 1987, it is a lot of fun. For thouse of you who don’t have a copy of the magazine, it’s been reprinted here.